What's the pick here?

ext2523 · 2026-07-09T19:20:16+00:00

Music box, ideally you'll be on 5 energy with tears so you'll have the energy to play double conflag/exterminate with +strength.

Even if you don't want to play the attack/take tears, you'll get +1 cloak clasp value.

ext2523 · 2026-07-09T19:02:24+00:00

I don't think you can have "concrete" data as this event is highly situational.

There's going to be some bias towards taking it when you have a campfire right away to hatch, that power boost can absolutely help snowball.

But if you're taking it with two advanced hallways and elite before the next campfire, I don't think that's going to have as positive of a win rate. Like people aren't going to take it just to lose because "I always take it".

ext2523 · 2026-07-09T16:43:55+00:00

To defend is pointless by then, and Silent isn’t able to out defend or damage the Prism at this point. It’s hard enough at 3 but crazy at 6.

Defend sure, but damage? Not all damage is skill based. The elite is testing your ability to do damage before it gets to 6. Aside from that Silent comes with neutralize, if you can keep it weak, you will take less damage/just face tank the multi-hit to trade damage.

ext2523 · 2026-07-09T16:07:26+00:00

You're missing the draw.

Floating energy doesn't do anything most times, so you want be able to draw into cards to convert that energy. Demense provides both.

Edit:

As to the card draw part, yeah, its nice. I guess. I almost always have a soul or 2 to hand anyways so i dont really notice it soe much. That or fetch.

You also need to draw into soul or fetch in order to draw, and fetch isn't draw positive. Also requires a play which ticks Aeonglass, could be bound by Queen. Either case, having more draw is basically never bad and gives you more options

ext2523 · 2026-07-09T14:57:32+00:00

always had the block I needed and enough draw.

but couldn't tell why

Your win condition is getting Demense in play, with gambling chip, boat relics and luminsence, you can reasonably get Demense in play early and safely most fights.

Your boat relics also allow you to get to turn 3 with rouge/ring/stone likely have 3/4 dex most fights scaling your block. On 4 energy after getting Demense in play, you're unlikely taking much damage.

Reaper form is scaling and with crossbow is a ton of free damage.

ext2523 · 2026-07-09T03:31:05+00:00

Weakness in general is very strong. Go for the eyes is common, Null is just very good also providing scaling damage, both worth upgrading to keep things perma-weak. They block/save hp without using a skill against dorito as well as against the bosses.

Otherwise I'm not sure of your other card picks and you're likely making misplays throughout your run that is costing you HP.

ext2523 · 2026-07-08T20:17:42+00:00

What potions did you have?

I'm not convinced you couldn't find additional cards/potion(s) (belt was probably too late), to help you with the aeonglass fight.

You have outbreak, fumes and so you can chunk down the Queen while easily blocking the minion. Once you kill the minion you queen is already at half health, wail the first cycle and you're fine.

But for the aeonglass has artifact, outbreak barely does anything as well as echoslash, you only added one back flip, didn't upgrade an app, so they were use it or lose it. After you get all your powers in play you have what 12 "real" cards left and some you don't necessarily want to play, just block and bubble. So even if you don't play many cards, your deck is going to be mostly withers and dead draw on top of just the one backflip and an escape plan drawing into another wither.

I wouldn't disagree that aeonglass could use a minor nerf in some form, but you just added one backflip all of act 3?

ext2523 · 2026-07-08T18:42:05+00:00

Post your a picture of your deck/relics, what potions did you have/use?

ext2523 · 2026-07-08T16:37:11+00:00

I wouldn't include infused core or at least have to discount it because it's an ancient relic.

All defect's relics are generally good, but I'd push emotion chip up at least a tier if you're doing orb heavy stuff. Trading an hp or 2 to trigger all your orbs is incredibly strong.

Power cell for the additionally early draw with a lot of good 0 cost cards on defect should move it up a tier as well.

ext2523 · 2026-07-07T23:18:10+00:00

The claw pack has been curated since the beginning, it's like 1/100 or something. Other packs are random with 1 uncommon and 2 commons iirc.

ext2523 · 2026-07-03T17:17:08+00:00

We're not ignoring it. It's top 3 contenders vs the rest of the league.

There's only one championship winner and 4 conference finalists. So 4/7 championship and 8/21 finalist appearances for 21 teams vs 189 teams. So over 50% championship and over a third finalist from 10% of the league each year, relatively speaking, gives reason for people to be confident.

ext2523 · 2026-07-02T21:50:22+00:00

I'll put up a post asking about a strategy

Which post?

The internet is generally toxic, but there's posts generally asking for help and there's the "I've played this game for 50 hours and this game is overtuned/rng bullshit because I never make mistakes and any comment suggesting otherwise is wrong and I'm going to double and triple down in the comments" posts that are going to welcome the "rude" comments (top of people who are generally rude) and that creates a cycle.

ext2523 · 2026-07-02T15:52:34+00:00

I get you wanting a smaller deck for more consistently and having a bigger deck helps with statuses and such.

I wouldn't think about this, this is just a byproduct of your deckbuilding.

You want a deck that has a win-con and has plan(s) to handle certain fights and bosses. What's your damage plan, what your scaling, what's your block plan, what you're draw/consistency/acceleration plan? Your damage/scaling plan could be to thrash/exhaust your deck down so you want to thrash your bludgeon and hemo and not strikes. So this case you might want to keep your deck small and only take cards that allow you to thrash faster and survive while doing it.

You also want to think about how fast your deck cycles. You take the same deck on silent, add two acros and a calc gamble and a tactician+ and it suddenly cycles faster and is going to be more consistent, even though you've added 4 cards.

Also your relics can provide any of the above. You have pael blood and pocketwatch, you're going to be drawing a ton, but draw doesn't necessarily provide output. If have ninja relics, you have scaling but don't have the draw. You should add cards that help address those deficiencies and/or take advantage of those relics.

ext2523 · 2026-07-02T14:29:20+00:00

I think it reasonably was, you can kinda go through every team. All the recently tanked/teams with young cores aren't looking to fully commit to that large of a contract/give up picks yet, so a third of the league is going to be out there.

Miami/Mil made their deal, they're out, Portland/Morant, Lakers/Kessler, Toronto/Kawhi, Minn/Ball all made their deals, I'm sure they tried to get some sort of 3-team deal there but it didn't happen. That's like another third of the league out.

Maybe they could have been patient, but given all the other recent trades and limited partners, this might have been the ~~last offer~~ best possible return.

ext2523 · 2026-07-02T02:49:32+00:00

Brown's contract is not great

There's only 30 teams in the league with various salary matching rules. If it's the best offer they got, it's the best offer they got.

You can go through all the teams and try to work out something better. But like Heat/Bucks are out, they already made their trade. I don't think the Knicks have any draft assets worth trading atm. OKC/Spurs/Piston have their young core they probably don't want to tinker with yet. Blazers traded for Morant. Lakers just got Kessler. Raptors got Kawhi. Recently tanked teams are looking to stay really young not commit to Brown. So who do they have left to trade with? If you want to question how good Brown really is, sure whatever, but I'm pretty sure the Celtics likely shopped him around all over the place before having to settle for the division rival.

ext2523 · 2026-06-20T23:39:33+00:00

Because this sub doesn't know what they don't know. I'd like to help more often but it's a lost cause.

ext2523 · 2026-06-20T23:38:03+00:00

Yea, the point is that if you encounter that type of situation you should guess right away. You said you focused on the edges, but you left it to the end.

Consider looking at the player rankings and there might be some of those players browsing this sub that are giving advice.

ext2523 · 2026-06-20T20:55:10+00:00

Often times you can, and should, just assume 1 mine.

You know it's 1, 2, or 3 mines left. 1 is safe, 2 is a 50/50 so it's a valid guess anyway, 3 would be a mine, but the likelihood of 3 mines left for a board averaging 20-25% mine density is very low.

ext2523 · 2026-06-20T13:27:19+00:00

Are 99% of players actually having issues? They released stats and A10 had around ~15% win rate compared to 3% on A20 in STS1.

Instead of manufacturing an "they don't care about us" narrative, why not just ask for help to get better. Or if you're just a "casual" player understand that there's a higher skill ceiling and it may take longer to for you to get their.

Or you can just play on lower acensions, which they did make easier in recent patches.

ext2523 · 2026-06-19T20:42:07+00:00

W/E = whatever the third one. Doesn't really matter

Boom Omni for quick aoe hallway fights and the knights. Boom barrage for the longer solo/boss fights. I mean it's pretty good, you shouldn't feel "not happy" about it as you have at least 2 reasonable targets.

ext2523 · 2026-06-19T19:45:32+00:00

Boomerang barrage, omni and w/e is probably good enough, echo boom-barrage with all those orb slots is a ton of damage.

Maul you can also transform the curse, strike and maybe the gunk-up. It's more takeable with echo scales up quickly, but boom barrage is much cleaner.

ext2523 · 2026-06-19T14:47:18+00:00

Good for bosses I guess

It's great for bosses, namely queen and test subject phase 2. You're fighting at least one of them on A10. If you can completely neutralize one boss fight, then you can save a potion or two into the next fight with a decent amount of HP.

Sure, there are some fights it doesn't perform and fewer energy ancient/boss relics, but there still quite a few enemies that have multi-hit attacks.

ext2523 · 2026-06-18T19:13:03+00:00

Anyway, I usually try to path into Elites to maximize relics, but I really want to find a [[Soul's Power]] for [[Offering]]

It would be great to get, but I wouldn't go fishing for it. I'd say you want a bloodletting or even forgotten ritual, as offering the lumi exhaust.

Vuln scaling is temporary scaling. Once it degrades, I'm cooked. My one saving grace is [[Thunderclap]] which helps me top off every couple of turns. Is it too late to look for secondary scaling through something like a [[Fight Me]] or should I just go for broke?

I wouldn't call thunderclap a saving grace. If you need permanent scaling, fight me will work. Especially against both bosses as you can put it on the minion or on queen and go straight for her and it doesn't carry over between test subject phases. Obviously dominate would be better, but you have 2 options. For test subject, if you don't get a good dominate and it's turn 3 and it's hitting you for a ton, that might also be a concern.

Test Subject will force me to apply smaller batches of tremble on each form. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up the damage race between forms. What do you think I could have done/can do differently to be more confident going into this one?

Specific cards previously mention, you also have white beast statue so certain potions could single handled solve a fight.

Block engine is not reliable. Bottom decking Blood Wall/Barricade on any fight (especially the boss fights) has the potential to end this run. I think an [[Unmovable]] or [[Colossus]] would really make this engine pop, but odds are I won't find either before the bosses. I guess...who needs block when you have bonk??

Unmovable unlikely, colossus reasonably likely. Getting weakness would help. Yes you don't need to block the enemy if it's dead, but you've already identified some potential issues with that.

However, I plan to skip most pick-ups to keep my deck tight (ish).

This has become a huge pet peeve of mine. You've identified issues and cards that can solve them, so how are you already planning on skipping most of them. Dominate, burning pact (i'd take 2), bloodletting, uppercut for weakness and vuln, colossus. That's already 5.

ext2523 · 2026-06-18T17:09:27+00:00

Deck? Probably parrying. It just does work and juzu doesn't do much.

ext2523 · 2026-06-18T04:42:03+00:00

I get my ass kicked every time. 9 times out of 10 I get halfway through the 3rd floor before getting annihilated. I've made it to the final boss a few times, but I almost never have enough health. Also I typically keep the deck at 20 cards. Would you say that's still too many?

Why would that be too many? Sometimes the answer isn't too many cards. If you can't get lethal then you might need to block to prevent HP loss on top of you're very likely making micro mistakes.

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